Episode 120
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 120
At the age of twenty, he enrolled in Minerva Academy under the Duke’s orders to build connections among the nobility.
The emptiness that had accumulated within him over the years had made him dependent. He naturally turned to alcohol and cigarettes, and dragged any woman he could into his bed. He threw his fists around as he pleased.
When the Duke heard that Cain had unilaterally assaulted and broken the nose of someone he’d gotten into a fight with, he didn’t scold him. Instead, he burst out laughing.
“Yes, yes. If you’re to inherit the duchy, you must learn to trample over others by any means necessary and reign supreme! As long as you won the fight, that’s all that matters.”
The sense of privilege the Duke had instilled in him since childhood grew stronger with each passing day.
Thanks to his handsome face, he never lacked for female company. Watching the women who blushed and offered him heartfelt gifts to win his favor, he fed his starving ego. Like a man who had starved his entire life, he became obsessed with their one-sided affection.
His life, which could have continued as that of a mediocre, emotionally stunted man, was twisted into tragedy by a single, simple encounter.
“Need a hand?”
He approached a female student who was frantically trying to gather the papers she had spilled in the hallway, bending down with a cocky slouch.
Seeing the girl’s eyes widen at the sight of his face, he inwardly scoffed as he picked up a paper and handed it to her. The moment their fingertips brushed, a smile that seemed to say mission accomplished flashed across her face, but Cain failed to notice.
“Where are you headed? Want me to carry those for you?”
Just play along a little, and she’ll cling to me on her own. Cain arrogantly admired the woman’s face as she quietly looked up at him. Not bad-looking, I guess.
He had never once complimented someone’s appearance. Compared to the face he saw in the mirror every day, no one else could be called beautiful. Cain, his expression indifferent, frowned at her unexpected words.
“Aren’t you mistaken, thinking every girl is interested in you, senior?”
Contrary to the disinterest in her words, the woman’s expression was flushed, as if she were anticipating something. In that moment, a competitive streak he didn’t know he had suddenly flared up.
“Am I wrong?”
“I’m not interested in you.”
“Then I’ll make you interested.”
The moment he turned and walked away, he was baffled. Why did I say that? It felt strange, even for something blurted out in a fit of pique.
It was as if something planted inside him was controlling him, his mouth moving on its own. Cain scratched the back of his head and nonchalantly dismissed the incident.
But after that first meeting, coincidence kept placing him in her path.
“You again?”
“What a coincidence.”
“A few too many for it to be a coincidence.”
One day, the classroom door would suddenly be locked, forcing him to spend hours with her. The next, he would run into her while doing an errand for a professor. It was like that almost every day.
As they met more frequently, their psychological distance naturally closed. Gradually, he found himself falling for her.
When he confessed the complicated family situation he had never told anyone, the woman embraced him, her eyes brimming with tears.
“None of this is your fault, senior. I’ll be by your side from now on. You don’t have to be lonely anymore.”
His red eyes, which had never once wavered, now trembled. He pulled the crying woman into a tight embrace, pressing their bodies together, and demanded, “Really? Will you really stay by my side?”
“Yes… I promise. I’ll never let you be lonely again.”
For the first time, his heart pounded in his chest. It was the first affection he had ever received from someone he didn’t despise. A bright smile spread across his face as he kissed her cheek.
“…You promised.”
But in truth, he knew little of sincere love. He was adept at slaking his thirst by exploiting the emotions of others, but he was unaccustomed to the give-and-take of genuine affection.
He gave nothing, yet constantly demanded proof of her devotion. He would kiss another woman right in front of her, as if to ask if she would leave him even after this, and he would hurl cruel words at her. He once abandoned his crying, heartbroken lover in the rain and simply walked away.
Just as their relationship reached its breaking point, a point where even he was filled with regret, he ‘saw’ something.
♥ KAIN RORRE: BAD ENDING
Would you like to start again? Yes | No ♥
Before he could even reach out, ‘Yes’ was selected, flashing brightly. As he stared blankly ahead, another box-like object appeared before his eyes.
♥ error;character;initialize_incomplete; ♥
It was the moment an error that should never have occurred, occurred.
*
His vision turned white. The world around him distorted and collapsed, its place filled by light.
After a long moment, the light faded, and he found himself surrounded by the boisterous sounds of the school grounds. He stood frozen, then asked a friend who was looking back at him in confusion.
“What year is it?”
“What’s wrong with you? It’s 1847!”
“1847…”
Cain whipped his head around and his breath caught. He saw the youthful figure of his lover, her hair fluttering in the wind as she gazed into the distance.
The woman he had personally wounded and driven away was smiling, looking up at the sky as if nothing had happened. Suddenly thrown back one year into the past, he blinked in a daze.
Perhaps this was a chance. A chance to fix the things he regretted so bitterly. A chance to make the woman who had offered him a warm hand happy.
Cain approached her once more.
Coincidence bound the two of them together again. He was so happy that he was grateful just to wake up each day.
He recalled the salvation he had begged God for since he was a child. He thought that perhaps a benevolent God had finally answered his prayer for someone to pull him out of this swamp of profound loneliness, to save him from his wounds that would not heal.
And so, he believed it was destiny.
“Your mother must have loved you. She didn’t die because of you! So please, don’t blame yourself. You did nothing wrong…”
Even when he once again confided his painful past and heard those shockingly comforting words from her.
“I’ll consider her a woman you’re seeing as a passing fancy.”
“Do not speak so carelessly. I will not live as you have, Father.”
Even when he defied his father, who took issue with her status, and refused to bend his will to be with her, even after taking a slap to the face. And even when, upon graduation, she promised to marry him, he believed.
Looking back, it was strange. How could that woman always know the exact right thing to say? But blinded by love, he harbored no suspicion.
“Marry me.”
“I’d love to.”
Beneath a tree from which flowers rained down like petals, a sweet fragrance bloomed. The woman, blushing shyly, wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled brightly.
He lowered his lips and kissed her deeply. Looking down at the woman he loved, he smiled in bliss.
I’m so glad I could undo my regrets. I’m so glad the benevolent Lord has looked down upon my life, which began in misery…
It was then that the sweet illusion shattered.
♥ KAIN RORRE: WEDDING ENDING
Would you like to start again? Yes | No ♥
It was not a benevolent God that moved this world. It was nothing more than a monster, greedily searching for its next amusement.
Before the eyes of the man with dead, blackened eyes, things that should not be seen kept appearing.
It was the beginning of a hell that would not permit him to forget.
*
The regressions continued. Five times, six times… He stopped counting the cycles of repetition somewhere around the seventieth.
The woman who was once his lover now didn’t even spare him a glance. He looked down at his empty hands and smiled bitterly.
‘Is this my atonement?’
Was he trapped in this repeating time as penance for the pain he had inflicted on her in his first life?
Unlike before, the woman would now cut him off with an annoyed look and walk away even if he tried to speak to her first. The frequency of the mysterious text boxes appearing didn't decrease; rather, it increased with each regression.
He thought of it as a punishment from God. A sinner, plunged into a swamp of ennui as a penalty for cruelly trampling on another’s heart—it seemed plausible enough.
In a regression where he had to watch the woman he loved smile at another man, Cain desperately sought out anything new to keep himself from going insane.
It was only natural that he ended up buried in the library, where a staggering number of documents were kept.
“…Never been in here before.”
It was in that context that he stepped into a room full of science books that everyone ignored.
He pulled out a book he had never read in any previous life and leaned his back against the wall. At that moment, he felt something hard and protruding. He spun around and stared in bewilderment at a red door that had suddenly appeared.
‘Why did I think this was a wall?’
The door was faintly shimmering, as if a veil had been cast over his consciousness, but it was undeniably there.
Taking a step back, he realized the door was only visible from a specific spot. He carelessly placed the book he was holding on a shelf and stood in that spot again.
Where does this door lead? A passage for the librarians? He slowly placed his hand on the doorknob, then frowned as a box, different from the ones he had seen before, materialized in the air.
DECP CORP SECURITY LOGIN
password:[ ]###
“What… is this?”